Severance agreements are a fairly standard way for employers to give departing staffers a little extra financial security and rest assured those workers won’t file a lawsuit. But changes may be coming to this employment document.
A recent EEOC lawsuit may force your company to rework its severance agreement.
Interferes with workers’ rights?
The EEOC just filed a lawsuit claiming CVS’s “five page single-spaced Separation Agreement” is so broad that it interferes with employees’ rights to file complaints with agencies like the EEOC.
And the scary thing is CVS’ agreement contains a lot of the generic language used in severance agreements by employers of all stripes.
Plus, it even contains a disclaimer that the agreement won’t interfere with “Employee’s right to participate in a proceeding with any appropriate federal, state or local government agency.”
But the EEOC feels that the one-sentence disclaimer wedged into a five-page document just isn’t good enough.
Among other things, the agency is asking the court to force CVS to stop using the agreement, redo its polices and cover all legal costs. We’ll keep you posted.
